Hello Again
by Five Minutes Til Bedtime
Summary: Set during the Wedding of River Song. Time itself is collapsing, every second of every moment happening all at once. The only thing more impossible is imagining that she wouldn't be there.


Title: **Hello Again**

Fandom: Doctor Who

Summary: Set during the Wedding of River Song. Time itself is collapsing, every second of every moment happening all at once. The only thing more impossible is imagining that she wouldn't be there.

Word Count: 969

* * *

All of time and space and of course it all comes down to her. He shouldn't have been so surprised. Time is dying so of course she is there. How could she not be?

The Doctor feels unusually stupid. It's not a feeling he is accustom to. How could he have not seen the signs? Charles Dickens broadcast about past and future ghosts, the War of Roses, the hot air balloons – all of it, nearly screaming out the truth. Yet, the Doctor didn't see it until he was staring down the Silence and his eyes happened to catch upon the tiny metal plaque above the tanks: Bad Wolf Inc.

Rose Tyler.

There are moments in time which stretch on for so long that the Timelords used to say a TARDIS could have run forever on the temporal energy – in other words, eternity in an instant. In the moment that the Doctor read those words time seemed to stop. Sound ceased to exist. Reality faded. The Doctor could suddenly see only one thing, but that one thing so clearly.

Rose Tyler was here. She was here. She was here. Shewashere. _Shewashere!_

In a moment, everything changed. And then time began again.

"Doctor?"

Hm? Oh yes, Amy. Amelia Pond; the Girl Who Waited. She was waiting for him.

She would have to wait a little longer.

The Silence was forgotten. The problems with time and his death and everything else – gone. The Doctor was grinning – wildly, manically, like a man he no longer was but had never stopped being. He bounded up the steps grabbed the startled redhead by the shoulders.

"Amelia Pond, I need a phone."

Amy blinked rapidly. Her expression was unusually startled. "What?"

Humans – so slow. "A phone. A communication device. Invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 in Boston, Massachusetts. A mobile. A cell. I need one. Now."

More rapid blinking. This was taking too long. Rose would have told him he was being rude. He felt young again – young and excited and so vastly full of energy.

He reached into Amy's jacket and found what he was looking for. He pulled the mobile out, flipped it open, and had the number punched in before he even stopped to remember it. Phone to ear – ringing.

More ringing. Only, it wasn't coming from the phone.

The Doctor's eyebrows rose, honest surprise on his face. She wouldn't have? No, of course she would have.

The sound was coming from the next room. It could have been a coincidence. It _could _have been – but it wasn't.

"Doctor, is that you? Who are you - ?"

"Hush, Pond," said the Doctor. Amy was a bright girl, she put two and two together quickly.

The Doctor moved. There was a door – big, heavy, steel – the Doctor opened it with a wave of his screwdriver. Beyond, was a large room. Circular in shape and flooded with busy-looking people. In the center was a chair and tied to it was a wicked woman. Just before her, with her back to the Doctor, was Riversong. He ignored them both.

The ringing stopped. It didn't matter. As soon as the door had opened he saw her. It was impossible not to. The way time swirled around her, caressed her like a daughter, fell to her whims; time remembered the Bad Wolf and Rose Tyler lit up like a star.

People were calling his name. Amy, Rory, Riversong. Their words fell on deaf ears.

Rose wasn't looking at him. She was staring at her phone. Her eyes were wide and her lips were parted. She was surprised. She would recognize his number, wouldn't she?

"Rose."

Her head shot up. She heard him; she _saw _him. There was confusion mingling in her eyes. He had changed his face again. He didn't know…wasn't sure…would she recognize him?

But then her eyes lit up and her entire face shifted. She knew him. She always could.

"Doctor."

She wasn't moving – frozen, stuck, still. So the Doctor took the first move and crossed the space between them in five long strides.

"Rose." And his arms came around her. He was taller than before, less skinny, but she fit just as perfectly as she always did – always would.

"Doctor," she said, her arms were around him. They were united again – The Doctor and Rose. Together. "I've been looking for you."

"I told you not to," he said; his voice was quiet, low. "It could have tearing a hole in the universe."

"I know." Rose had no remorse, no guilt. She had crossed universes before to find him – he shouldn't have thought she wouldn't have done so again.

"I'm glad you did," he said. And he was. He was so, so, so glad.

It was another one of those everlasting moments. The Doctor could have stood there hugging Rose for all of time he was able, but eventually the outside world began to break through. He heard Amy and Riversong's growing questions and concerns and felt, more than heard, Rory's anxiousness growing.

Rose, good old Rose, pulled back first. But they clasped hands (again, perfect fit) and when they turned to face the questions they were united.

Amy's was the first question to reach him. It was also the loudest and shrillest of them.

"Doctor, who is this?"

The grin came back.

"Rose Tyler, meet Amelia Pond. Amelia Pond, meet Rose Tyler. Rose is – well, Rose is - "

The Doctor stopped, choking on his words. Rose was what? What do you call someone like Rose, other than Rose? She was just…was.

"Fantastic," he finally settled on. The word sprang to his lips like they were possessed – maybe they were. Fantastic was a word of his past – he was more of a brilliant man now. "Rose is fantastic."


End file.
